


This Is a World You Wouldn’t Want To Live In

by akingdomofunicorns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, F/M, Gen, Homosexuality, M/M, Multi, Romance, Sister-Sister Relationship, Spanish Civil War, Tudor Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:58:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 51
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akingdomofunicorns/pseuds/akingdomofunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brevity is the soul of wit —Shakespeare</p><p>Or, as Baltasar Gracián once said, "Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno".</p><p>(These are AU drabbles and AU means gold)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Myrcella/Robb

He’s a sweet man, all autumn colours and freckled shoulders, but he’s naïve, too; naïve and honourable and insecure. She’s not —she’s summer and winter all at once, golden hair and creamy skin, green eyes and freckled cheeks, sweet and harsh and hot-headed, strong and petty and sometimes a bit of a hypocrite.

Everyone thinks they ought to leave each other alone and move on, but only Robb understands Myrcella’s need to be the best at everything, even if she has to hurt others in some way or other, and only Myrcella tolerates Robb’s insecurity and temperament —so maybe theirs isn’t a pure love, but it’s love, and it’s more than most people have at the moment.


	2. Margaery/Sansa (Modern AU)

The first time she sees Sansa, she’s wearing nothing but a bikini and her red hair cascades down her pale skin in a river of fire and copper and gold.

The second time, Margaery finds her in a coffee shop and Sansa invites her to sit with her and Marg is pretty sure she’s never met a girl as sweet as the one who’s sitting right in front of her.

The third time, she invites her over to her house to watch a movie and instead they end up kissing against a wall, curly brown hair entangled with soft red locks.


	3. Rickon

He eats when he’s hungry and he sleeps when he’s tired.

Sometimes he wonders how was life before Skagos, but he doesn’t remember anything, so he asumes he must’ve been born in the island.

Sometimes he dreams of a woman with red hair and he calls her mother; but the only mother he knows is Osha, and her hair is dark and messy, so he asumes it’s just his mind playing tricks on him because his own hair is kind of red, when it’s not dirty.


	4. Arya/Gendry

He smells of steel and fire, cooked meat and burnt wood and sweat; it’s nice, how this scent surrounds her when he’s on top of her, sucking on her breasts.

She’s tiny under his hands, all thin and hard, rough skin and little hands and big eyes as grey as the steel he works with.

They have no lands and no titles, no family to claim as their own but each other, but Arya says that’s enough and sometimes it’s easy to believe her.


	5. Jon/Sansa (and his damned honour)

Daenerys Targaryen lands with her dragons and conquers Westeros and she names him Jon Targaryen and offers her own hand in marriage, but he refuses. She marries Trystane Martell instead and asks him, more like orders him, to marry Sansa and hold Winterfell, and still he refuses.

Later at night, Sansa comes to his room and presses her warm body against his and he’s reminded of all the times he’d wished she’d hugged him and loved him as a sister; he feels tempted to accept Daenerys’ offer, if only to have Sansa hold him like this forever, but he took his vows nine years ago, and sacrifices must be made for the good of the realm.


	6. Loras/Renly

He paints him as Apollo fighting against Python, naked but for a red cloak, and he marvels at the straight lines of his chest, his chestnut hair and strong legs and mischievous eyes.

Loras likes to undress him later while Renly’s fingers are still covered in paint and their bodies are hot against each other and their mouths are wet when they kiss, but it feels like Heaven to both of them, even if everyone thinks what they’re doing is sinful.

Three hundred years later, some historian will say that Renly Baratheon was trying to portray his own homosexuality, none will know that Renly had loved Loras until the end of his very short life, and none will stop to consider that maybe Loras had loved him in return, had loved him so much that he had followed him shortly to the grave.


	7. Myrcella/Robb II (Reincarnation AU)

They’ve lived three lives already, and the three have ended with her dead before her time; the first she’d been burnt (her name had been Joanne, back then, Joanne of Arc), the second she’d been beheaded (her name had been Marie Antoinette and she’d been the most beautiful woman of all Europe) and the third she’d been shot to death by Lenin’s men (her name had been Anastasia, and she’d been a sweet and wilful girl, but not as beautiful as her sisters or her brother).

The fourth time her name is Myrcella, he is Robb and they’re surrounded by zombies.

Robb has been preparing himself to loose her all his life, because he knows he’ll see her again in the future, all he has to do is wait for her like he’s always done; it doesn’t matter that it seems he’s destined to loose her over and over again, he’ll always fight to keep her alive a little bit longer, because she always fights to return to him.


	8. Sansa/Willas

Sansa likes to sleep curled against his chest, with her back to him and his arms around her to keep the nightmares away. Sometimes the nightmares stay until she ends up throwing up, and those are the times he’s never able to comfort her, no matter how hard he tries, and he’s reminded of how young she is, how much she’s hurting.

But Sansa is always smiling and happy when she’s holding little Willem in her arms, and he has faith that with time, she’ll be all right again.


	9. Sansa/Theon, Lysa

She is twelve when Theon first kisses her, and his mouth is sweet and gentle, loving, even, and his hands rest on her shoulders innocently; he kisses her regularly after that, always when no one is looking.

She is fifteen when she comes to his rooms, sweaty and needy, only to find him delirious in his fever; she kisses him then, hoping to make him feel better, and suddenly he’s saying her name and holding her against him and their naked bodies move against each other desperately, because they know what they’re doing is wrong.

(She is sixteen when they marry her to an old man in desperate need of an heir and Theon is sent to the Wall to never return, and only Aunt Lysa ever comes down from her mountain to visit her, and then she hugs her and lets her cry, and she whispers softly in her ear, “It’s alright, my sweet, everything will be fine; they don’t understand, but I do, and you must never give up on your love for him, even if it hurts.”)


	10. Arya/Catelyn, mother/daughter relationship

There’s a lot of things Catelyn doesn’t understand about her daughter (her need to follow her husband’s son around being one of them, or how she always ends up so dirty), but she loves her fiercely, with every breath in her body, with every beat of her heart. She fears she’ll never be able to fully understand her, that wilful daughter of hers, no matter how many years she lives to see her grow into a beautiful and lovely woman.

But she knows Arya loves to brush her hair, let her little fingers get tangled through her red locks, play with her curls throwing them around… so she always makes sure to go to her room with a silver brush at night to let her baby play, just to feel her little body pressed against her back, just to know that she loves her all the same, no matter how many times she forbids her to do what she likes most. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when I get stuck in a car for seven hours. Again. But I'm back home now. (You're lucky my battery died or you'd have twenty of these instead of ten. Just you wait until I'm bored and without Internet again...)


	11. Arya/Gendry II

She’s seated beside her father, her green dress complimenting her hair nicely, though she looks rather restless, he notes, eager to watch the knights ride but still sour that she’s not allowed to participate.

He rides well, head held high and the stallion hot between his thighs, and he unhorses knight after knight after knight, he unhorses them all, until there’s only Prince Aegon and him standing, and he unhorses him too.

It feels so sweet to place the crown of roses on Arya’s head (yellow, Arya’s favourite roses are yellow, not blue, never blue) and to see her smiling, her eyes so shy —Lord Stark looks at him with sad eyes, but he smiles because he’s not his father, he’s just Gendry, and Arya’s not her aunt, she’s just Arya, and he loves her. 


	12. Stannis (as Javert)

He is the law and the law is not mocked, no matter how much those criminals try. He is the law and the law must not be fought, that’s why he fights with every breath in his body against the ones who dare mock him.

His name’s Stannis, Stannis Baratheon, and no one will ever forget him —not when he’s a just man, not when he’s the righteous man that brings peace to the world.


	13. Cat/Ned

He is so serious, she thinks, all hard lines and cold skin. And yet his eyes are soft when he smiles at her, sweet when he holds Robb in his arms, a lovely shade of grey that makes her want to kiss him.

He’s no Brandon, his laugh is not so loud and his manners not as social, but she’s a practical woman, she has no need of knights and gallantry, only warm hands to hold her when winter finally comes and Ned is so innocent, so very eager to please her, that she knows it will be easy to love him.


	14. Ashara/Barristan

She is very well aware of the way his eyes follow her every move while she leans closer to Princess Elia, of the way his demeanour softens when he sees her, of the way he almost smiles when he bids her goodmorning.

He’s a knight, like her own brother, and he is so very sweet (not handsome, he is not young anymore) and attentive, he gets so nervous while near her (his skin seems to soften, his muscles tense, the pupils of his eyes tremble, he pales) and he seems to be so in awe of her…

Ashara likes that Barristan Selmy admires her because she admires him in return, for he’s the greatest of knights… but he will never break his vows, and still she dreams. 


	15. Edmure/Roslin

Roslin tries, she really, really tries; she tries so hard it’s easy to forget she used to be a Frey.

Edmure wants to remember, he really wishes he could hold onto his hate and sorrow: he doesn’t want to forget what her family did to his (and he won’t, he’ll never forget, he’ll never forgive); but Roslin is good and loving and so he makes space in his heart to let her in. Her eyes are so sweet —there’s no evil in her and it’s not long before he learns to love her in return.


	16. Jaime/Sansa

Her hair is the colour of Cersei’s blood (red and black and gold and shiny, depending on the light, seeping through a cloak of crimson and gold and a dress of purple trimmed with sable), her eyes the ice of the North (blue and cold and hard, strong and unforgiving, they say, though he’s seen how they soften when she talks to Bran or how they suffer for Rickon and Arya).

He runs his fingers through her hair, all fire and honey, and she kisses him until his lips are bloody, and their skin is cold and pale against each other. They lie tangled in each other afterwards and if he murmurs “I love you” against her shoulder and she says it back, the next morning they pretend nothing happened because that’s how they live their lives.


	17. Margaery/Tyrion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you dare judge me: I am sick and I am bored.

He is quite loud, when he so desires, for words are his swords; she is much quieter, all soft eyes and pleasant courtesies, she uses her smiles as weapons and they’ve always worked.

Later, when they’re in bed (the King must not know, Joffrey would have both their heads on spikes if he were to find out), he’s the one who smiles, pleased and sated, and she’s the one who talks, her words sweet while her moans still echo in the room. She says many things, but she says nothing of the bastard babe growing inside her belly, and she thinks of how both Baratheon Kings will be cuckolded by their pretty, little, innocent wives with Lannister lovers. 


	18. Sansa/Tyrion

He’s a lawyer at Lannister Publishing House, a man twelve years her senior with mismatched  eyes and a mischievous smile that makes her want to be wicked.

He brings her flowers every Sunday afterwards, even after they’re married (they marry out of the blue, when they’re half drunk on wine, half on love, and they surprise everyone). He brings her flowers every Sunday, even after the cancer has claimed her and he has to walk all the way to the cemetery with his stubby legs cramping all the way.


	19. Myrcella/Robb III (Modern AU)

"You are in trouble, Stark."

"What now, Cella?"

"Because three years ago I told you to get a vasectomy, but you didn't, and now there's another Wild Stark Baby on the way, idiot."


	20. Arya/Sansa (sisters are forever)

All the blood around them makes her cringe, but Arya smiles her wicked smile and licks at the blade of her sword, and Sansa thinks she’s never seen anything as beautiful, as dangerous.

Sansa passes the sentence and Arya swings the sword and they cut a stunning pair, all red and brown and blue and grey and pale skin and lovely lips. The South burns and winter falls upon them and when all is said and done, only Winterfell is left standing while the wolves tear apart their enemies and the sisters sit atop a throne of dead bodies, mad on bloodlust and power, thirsty for vengeance still, greedy for love, for innocence. 


	21. Sansa/Willas II

She makes him blush whenever she can because it’s the cutest thing ever, really; it’s also a lot of fun, since Willas’ skin turns almost purple, he gets so embarrassed. She asks him out on a date on a Thursday afternoon and waits for the flush to creep up on his cheeks and feels the victory pulse on her throat when his skin turns pink and red.

She shouldn’t like him as much as she does, but it’s so hard to stop now that she’s started.


	22. Ned Dayne/Sansa

Dorne suits her better than she ever thought it would, but it doesn’t come as a surprise.

(It has everything to do with Ned, she knows, and how lovely he is with her all the time.

It has everything to do with the way his tongue collects the beads of sweat on the inside of her thigh and he smiles at her like he knows what she’s thinking.)


	23. Arya/Gendry III (Assassins)

It’s an easy job, something they’ve done so many times she stopped counting sometime around the second year: they give false names, play the married couple, get inside the house where the fancy party thing is taking place dressed to the nines and she slips the poison in the right cup at the right time.

Another one bites the dust, she jokes later, while tracing patterns at Gendry’s back, right beside the scar on his shoulder from that one time he took a bullet for her, and he turns around to kiss her, murmurs _m’lady_ against her lips right before he bites at them.

All in all, it’s a lovely evening, she thinks, made even sweeter when she remembers Cersei Lannister’s face when she realised all her puppets were starting to fall one by one around her.


	24. Brandon/Lyanna

She slaps him when they’re in her room alone and she’s realised he’ll do nothing to save her from Robert Baratheon’s filthy hands. He tries to kiss her to make her understand that he can’t do anything about it, but she pushes him through the door without a word falling from her lips and it stings more than it should.

Maybe that’s why he beds Lady Barbrey Ryswell again, even though he knows he shouldn’t; maybe that’s why she runs away with Rhaegar Targaryen, even though she knows it’s wrong.

 


	25. Ashara/Ned

He blushes all the way through the dance, but Lady Ashara only smiles and whispers he’s been her favourite partner by far.

He doesn’t believe her one bit, not with the way she smiles (there's something mischievous about her, wicked, even). She kisses him to prove it.


	26. Ashara/Brandon, Ashara/Ned II

She dances with quiet, serious Ned, but it’s really his brother she wants (she knows she shouldn’t, but she’s always been more selfish than anyone would ever believe her to be).

Elia smiles at her knowingly when she slips through the door halfway through the dance with Brandon Stark hot on her heels and she has to bite her tongue to keep from laughing.

He thinks her a maiden and it’s not the first time she’s played the part to make this northerners (and really, anyone born north of the Dornish Marches is a northerner to her) feel anything but special, but at the end of the night she feels rather disappointed and regrets not having danced at least once more with sweet Ned Stark, who had smiled shyly at her, all awkward in his manners, and had blushed a deep red as he said her hands were gracious.


	27. Loras/Renly II (Modern AU)

Loras finds out Renly makes the best coffe on a Sunday morning, when he’s so hungover he can hardly open his eyes.

Renly finds out Loras makes the best cupcakes on a Thursday afternoon, when he’s still at his office trying to find the best way to win this case so he can throw that Bolton asshole in jail for the rest of his life and Loras comes with a basket full of them (he can most definetly hear Tyrion Lannister laughing his ass off on the office next door and shouting lewd jokes about all the sexy _shenanigans_ taking place on his desk at the moment, but he chooses to ignore him while his tongue is deep in Loras’ throat).

Margaery and Myrcella say they’re perfect for each other and Renly has to believe them, ‘cause Cella’s got this weird sixth sense on her that always tells her what will happen in the future and it freaks him out, true, but the girl is always right, damn her. 


	28. Jon/Ygritte

It’s hard not to notice her (she’s loud and wild and impertinent and so pretty).

It’s easy to fall in love with her (she’s sweet and funny and passionate and he feels so weak).

It’s impossible to let her go (they don’t marry, but she births him sons and daughters and he falls in love with her a little bit more everyday).


	29. Jon/Sansa II

She tries not to love him, she really does, but he’s like one of those knights she used to sing about and his eyes are so very sweet… She kisses him at midnight and waits for him to push her away, to call her wicked and tainted and ruined, but he cradles her in his arms and breathes against her ear and his breath smells of mint and peaches and he tastes of honey and salt.

He tells her he loves her on the morrow, with a crown of daisies for her head in his hand.


	30. Lysa vs. Petyr

She loved him (she still does somehow, she loves him, loves him, _loves_ him), she loved him so much she was willing to birth his babe, she was willing to give it all up for him (she would have, she knows she would).

But he lied and there’s nothing Lysa hates so much as liars (Father had lied to her once and sometimes she can still feel the blood running down her thighs, she can still remember all her dreams being crushed, her baby being killed —Father lied once and she’s not so naïve as to believe it was the first time he did it).

So she pushes him out the Moon Door before he can push her and it’s the sweetest kind of release: she’s free to be free at last. 


	31. Cersei/Jaime

She marries Robert when it should have been Rhaegar in his place (no, not really, it should have been _him_ , for there’s no one on this earth who loves her as much as he does).

He watches as the King covers his sister’s shoulders with the Baratheon cloak when it should have been a three-headed dragon instead of a stag (no, not really, it should have been a Lannister cloak, for his sister is nothing but a lioness).

He helps her get rid of the baby because he knows it should have been Rhaegar’s seed which should have quickened in her womb (no, not really, that’s why he makes sure to spill himself inside her thighs to get her with child, _his_ child).


	32. Tyrion/Tysha

Her voice is lovely, like baked apples and honeyed wine, as lovely as her eyes and her hair and her skin —he loves her deeply, truly, as much as she loves him back.

He likes her belly and, most of all, he likes to imagine her growing thick with child, a babe as beautiful as her, a babe with her hair and her eyes and her voice and everything that makes her beautiful —a girl, mayhaps.

His father takes all that from him —Tysha and his innocence and her lovely voice and his trust in women (no one is ever gonna love him).


	33. Neville Longbottom/Sansa (Hogwarts AU)

She is sorted into Slytherin and she feels like crying because surely she is not so evil (her Papa was a Hufflepuff and her Mum a Gryffindor, same as Robb and her aunt Lyanna and her uncle Brandon, while her uncle Benjen was in Ravenclaw, same as her cousin Jon).

She learns that not all Slytherins are evil (Marg Tyrell is her bestfriend and she is kind and sweet and clever and cunning and Daphne Greengrass is flirty and bitchy and funny and she loves them dearly, like sisters) and not all Gryffindors are brash (Neville is probably the sweetest boy to ever ask her out and he does it so unsurely, with his cheeks all red and his hands trembling and sweaty).

She learns that it’s not the house that defines her (Arya shouts it to some Gryff asshole who looks down his nose at her, as if she’s the vermin of the world, and she’s never loved her sister as much as when she stands up for her, even when they weren’t speaking to each other), but her actions (she accepts Neville’s invitation to go to Hogsmeade with him because he makes her giggle even without trying and he’s cute and nice and maybe, just maybe, they can show the world that the only way to avoid war is to accomplish peace).


	34. Shireen/Quentyn

She is six-and-ten when Father tells her she is to marry Prince Quentyn of House Martell and it’s a better match than she had hoped for (she met him once, at a tourney, and she remembers thinking him gentle and rather handsome —not as much as his sister or his younger brother, but he had something in the shape of his mouth that made her want to kiss him).

Later she finds out he was the one to ask for her hand in marriage and she wonders what compelled him to do so —she cannot imagine anyone ever wishing to marry her.

(She asks him on their marriage bed, when she can feel his seed sticky at the craddle of her thighs and their skin is covered in sweat, and he smiles like he knows something she doesn’t, his eyes mischievous, his mouth wickedly lovely, and says, “I shall tell you one day, but not now, I rather like your eyes when they look so curious.”)


	35. Myrcella/Robb IV

He’s never felt so scared as when one of the midwives exits Cella’s chambers with the sheets all covered in blood and he’s had enough of all this waiting; he gets rid of his mother’s arms and marches towards where he’s needed, at his wife’s side.

He’s never seen her so pale, so weak, but she’s strong, his lioness, and so she grits her teeth and she pushes, pushes and pushes until she has no strength left in her body and the babe tumbles out of her thighs covered in blood —a boy, their second and the last, Maester Luwin tells them, and he couldn’t agree more, because he’s not ready at all to loose her at the birthing bed.

Rickard and Alysanne come to see their newborn brother, Robert, for Cella’s late Father, and they’re enough, really, he doesn’t need anything else to be happy.


	36. Jaime/Margaery

The archbishop knows love is madness (he had loved his sister sinfully, loved her with both his soul and his flesh and that love, maddening and dirty and awful, was what pushed him towards Christ), but the Marquise is an exquisite woman, smooth skin and lovely lips and sweet eyes, and it’s been so long since he had a woman warm him (ever since his sweet sister married that filthy Duke and he took his habit). She’s a married woman, which makes it all the more corrupt, but she’s willing and pliant and passionate, her thighs feel strong and trembling around his hips and her juices feel sweet and tangy and sticky against his tongue and he can’t very well say no to her.

He gets her with child and he deems himself lucky that the babe is born with a tuff of chestnut curls and green Lannister eyes, and Margaery kisses him before she tells him she’s named her son James, in his honour (he kisses her back).


	37. Joanna/Tywin

She should be scared of her Professor, but she cannot fear him (she’s known him all her life, her cousin, and she knows he would never hurt her, he would never be mean to her).

She doesn’t let his presence distract her from her goals (she’s loved him all her life, it’s true, but love comes and goes and she wants to be grand, she wants to be worthy of being a Lannister) and she’s succesful, she graduates _cum laude_ and she can see a ghost of a smile on his face (she counts that as one of her biggest victories).

She asks him out for coffee on the last day of school, when everyone is cleaning their lockers, and he announces he’ll pick her up at four the next day (she asks, _demands_ , him not to wear that awful red and blue tie because it gives her a headache and he scowls, though she can see that he’s not really mad).


	38. Brienne/Jaime

She’s good, he’ll give her that —good and eager and more trustworthy than the lot he works with everyday.

She’s fresh from the academy —naïve and innocent and a child from summer, but she has what it takes, he thinks, and he can work with that.

She’s not pretty, not at all, but her eyes are full of dreams, sapphire blue like the water that surrounds Florida, and she reminds him of himself at her age, ready to make the world a better place, throwing her heart in the line, trusting her gut, moving forward, forward, forward, never back, and maybe that’s what he needs in his life.


	39. Sansa/Tyrion II (Modern AU)

He goes to pick his daughter from school every Monday and Friday and he catches a glimpse of Marei’s teacher, Miss Sansa Stark, at the door, waving at the fourth graders that run to their parents like their tails are on fire.

Marei loves Miss Stark and speaks highly of her and he feels guilty that he has a silly crush on her (he’s a thirty-nine year old widowed man, he should not, for the love of all that’s proper and right, have a crush on his daughter’s elementary teacher, but she is just so lovely and kind and nice and he’s been alone ever since Tysha died five years ago); he is always polite and flirty with her and he knows it’s all very innocent, that he’s too old and too bitter for Sansa, who is just twenty-six and has all her life ahead of her.

He tells her that when she asks him out and she just laughs and kisses his bearded cheek, as if he were one of her students and he really feels silly then, because of course she’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions by herself (she chooses to spend the night in his bed while Myrcella is babysitting Marei and really, he can’t remember for the life of him why he was against the idea in the first place).


	40. Arya/Gendry IV (Veronica Mars AU)

Mycah’s body is found by the river and her father’s first suspect is her boyfriend Aegon —she has to choose between her boyfriend and her family and, as much as she loves Aegon, she is a Stark and a Tully after that, _family_ always comes first.

The next year she’s completely alone at the school when she used to be pretty popular and for the first time she wonders what would Sansa do in her place —Edric Dayne invites her to sit with his friends at his table and she finds herself beside that new kid, Gendry Waters, who knows nothing of Mycah and Aegon and her father trying to find evidance against the Targaryen heir (maybe she can start afresh with him, though she doubts it, because Gendry is made of the material that makes boys popular and there’s nothing this school likes more than to gossip, so by the end of the day he’ll know exactly what happened last year).

He does find out pretty quickly what happened to make her a pariah, but he sides with her because he’s only got his mother and loyalty to one’s family should come first —she falls in love with him a little bit for that and she lets him kiss her six months later, when Sandor Clegane is thrown in jail for the murder of Mycah.


	41. Sansa/Smalljon

She is six-and-ten when her betrothal to the heir to Last Hearth is announced and she blushes prettily at the thought of being a wife, a _lady_ , at last —she’s wanted it for so long she can’t remember a time she wasn’t thinking about how perfect it would all be (not like Arya, who she knows still plays with the butcher’s boy and kisses the blacksmith on the lips whenever they’re alone; but she hasn’t told anyone, because she’s never seen her sister smile so much and, before all, it is her duty to allow Arya to be happy while she can).

She dances with the Smalljon before everybody’s eyes, but they don’t talk much: he’s too busy trying not to step on her toes and she laments to herself that her husband-to-be is such a horrible dancer; mayhaps she can make him better, with some practice, and he can teach her how to kiss him properly, once they’re alone in their bedroom and they’ve said their vows before the Old Gods, but he is to leave in a fortnight and won’t be coming back for some time, until the wedding, if he can’t make it sooner.

She is eight-and-ten when she sees him again and her Papa gives her away in marriage to House Umber —Robb kisses her on the eyelids the night before to make her brave and she even sleeps in the same bed as Arya because she’s so going to miss her, her little, wild sister that’s still kissing her blacksmith— and they dance at the feast; she feels his hands warm against her tiny ones and his eyes soft on her face and his feet are lighter and quicker, surer, but he still missteps every too often and once the silver cloth of her dress gets caught with his cloak and his shoe, but they manage, and by the end of the night it won’t matter, whether he danced well or not.


	42. Arya/Marg, an unusual friendship

Sansa lays cold and dead at the crypts of Winterfell when Margaery Tyrell arrives from Highgarden to pay her respects to her old friend and to parley; she comes with her brother Garlan and his wife, Leonette, and a retinue of servants and maids that linger in the halls of Winterfell shivering and complaining about the cold, but not once the once-queen of Westeros mentions the cold, she just smiles at the newly crowned Queen in the North and offers hers and her family’s condolences.

Arya mistrusts her (her and the rest of her southron family), but Margaery is a cunning girl, her brother is very _gallant_ and Lady Leonette reminds her a bit of her own lady mother, and, against all that life and Sansa had ever taught her, she begins to trust them (not enough to get her killed, but enough to get her hurt _again_ ).

Margaery is a constant reminder of what Sansa used to be before the war, of what she could have been and what she was in the end, a reminder of the sister she’s lost, of the sister she loved, of the sister she tried to save before the fever consumed her and sent her away —by the end of their stay, she asks Lady Margaery to stay just a bit more, just enough for her to understand what ruling means and to get over her sister’s death, and when Sir Garlan and Lady Leonette leave, Margaery stays behind; by the end of the year, she warms Arya’s bed more often than not, and ten years later, they call her Queen Consort again.


	43. Margaery/Myrcella

She’s never had a sister like Myrcella, all yellow and pink and petty and mean —none of her cousins are like her, none of her cousins have ever smiled like her, they have never kissed her like Myrcella does, with teeth and tongue and anger.

They call her the Maleficent Princess, the Bloody Lion of the Rock, that tall woman of three-and-twenty, with sunlight in her hair and summer grass in her eyes; the same woman who comanded her brother’s army to victory against Aegon Targaryen, the woman who killed the second Greyjoy Rebellion flat with no more than three moves on her side of the board, the woman who is Tywin’s legacy after all, the only one that shall defeat the Mother of Dragons when she comes, _if_ she comes. But Myrcella is not really her sister, she doesn’t have a need for one, and so she is free to kiss her.


	44. Roslin/Jeyne Westerling, queens do it better

Roslin tastes of milk and honey, rosewater, cinnamon and silver, sometimes she even tastes like what she remembers King Robb tasting like: iron and copper and flesh, salty and spicy and minty, too. She likes Roslin, she’s soft and pretty and sweet, and she loves to run her tongue between the gap of her teeth when they’re together in bed, naked and sweaty and lusty, all prepared to pleasure each other like only they know how to do.

Jeyne is glad she never married King Robb and that Roslin took her as her maiden in waiting, she’s glad she got to share her bed, learn her body, memorise her mouth; she has no need of Kings, Queens do it better anyway.


	45. Jeyne Poole/Sansa

They are six-and-ten when Sansa finally kisses her for the first time, giving up at last any pretenses they’ve been keeping up. It’s quite terrible that she cannot love her husband —that not even the name Velaryon doesn’t make her want to be the most loving wife, to bring honour to the name of Stark and birth babes with Valyrian blood and that of the First Men—, but that she loves her childhood friend, her maid and companion…

Jeyne doesn’t mind, though, and she kisses her back with the same sweetness that has always followed her.


	46. Margaery/Theon

He says they can be pirates together, that he will wield a sword and she’ll wear mermaid scales on her skin, chains and necklaces of gold around her neck and diamond crowns upon her head. He says their ship will wear her name, “ _Queen Margaery_ , my doll,” and their crew will bow to her.

It’s not all that she wants, even if it’s sweet to hear him say it, but the freedom —she wants freedom and her hair fanned upon his chest.


	47. Myrcella/Robb V (AU: Christmas, for sapphireglyphs)

Despite her golden hair and sunkissed skin, Myrcella is Christmas; she’s hot cocoa with cinnamon and red stockings hanging over the fireplace, she’s stolen kisses under the mistletoe all around Winterfell Manor and a secret declaration of love while their families sang by the piano downstairs a year ago.

"Will you follow me to UPenn?" she asks, her nose pink with frostbite and her blonde curls a mass of wild ringlets sticking out under her knitted hat.

It’s her last year of high school and she wants to leave Maine to go to Pennsylvania and there’s only one thing he can tell her while they sit under the white lights that are hanging on his parent’s porch, “I will follow you anywhere, Princess.”


	48. Arya/Gendry V (At a gas station, for shelbycominroundthemtn)

"Arya, you know I love you, but this is not the gas station we should be in, because this is not the state we should be in."

Arya looks at him from the map she’s holding and Gendry  _knows_  she’s the best at reading them, but dammit, he knows how to get to his mother’s from Montana to Cali because he’s been doing it for three years already and she should have turned right when he told her, back in Idaho.

"Shut up, stupid," she says, because it’s not her fault they’ve somehow ended up in Nebraska.


	49. Myrcella/Robb VI

“Cella, I’ve been thinking about this for the last four months, reminding myself over and over again that you’re too young, only twenty-three, and that there’s so much you want to do, like visit Iceland this summer and Brazil in the winter, and that you want to write that book about dragon riders and do a flash mob in the rain in the middle of New York; but I don’t think I can wait anymore, because truth is I cannot and-”

“Robb, shut up and let _me_ do the talking. Will you marry me already?”


	50. Margaery (Tudor Era)

She brings peace and beauty to the King’s court after Queen Anne’s execution —her smiles seem to sweeten his heart and his soul, they work like a balsam to his wounded pride and make his skin burn.

She cares nothing for him, this spoiled pig who’s no better than Prince Joffrey Baratheon of France or Tzar Aerys Targaryen of Russia, but she wants the crown Queen Catherine and Queen Anne wore on their brows.

But lady Jane Seymoure comes and the King marries her —Lady Margaery sees the crown slip through her fingers and land on lady Jane’s head, and before she can as much as object her things are packed up and she’s shipped off towards Fontainbleau, her hand already promised to Joffrey.


	51. Myrcella/Robb VII (Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939)

Father’s dead, murdered by Franco’s men, and Mother’s family has declared for him —she runs away before they can send her to the Martells in Greece to stop them from sending reinforcements to the _Rojos*_.

  
Sansa finds her in the North, near Barcelona, and Robb hides her in exchange of information on the Lannisters: Tommen is in London, safe with the Tyrells, and Joff is fighting in the South along with Franco’s troops and dear God please don’t let her brothers die; Tywin is in Galicia, advancing towards Madrid, and no one knows where Jaime is, but her Mother is planning something alongside Tyrion and that’s all she knows, she promises.

  
Robb cannot help it, not when she’s been his ever since she’s been seventeen, and he marries her on the ’38 before he departs towards the Capital to make a last stand against Franco; on the ’39 she’ll run away once more, this time with sweet, little Caterina at her breast, Sansa and Rickon at her side and the memory of her husband’s warmth still fresh against her skin, even though his body lies cold and dead under the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The Rojos were the Republicans that fought against Francisco Franco's troops and lost, giving way to the dictatorship of the General. They were represented with the colour red, rojo in Spanish.


End file.
